Narrative

Good For a Laugh

Dinner at Kitty and Donnie’s is a trip. They welcomed us into their wee home for tea one night. Of course, “tea” in this sense, is what they refer to as dinner. There is tea, the drink, and there is high tea, the meal.

Kitty had plenty of food prepared; enough for 8, and of course there was only four of us. Potatoes, two types of vegetable, roast beef with lots of gravy, and wine or milk or coffee or tea. The conversation is what is really important. Dinners last longer than at home. You talk at great lenght over dinner; it could be politics, life, the weather, and, for our conversation, a large part about the WIS program. But talking is very important. There is no hurry to leave the table. It is just good etiquette to have seconds, converse, and be merry. I think we sat at the table for a good 2 hours. What is funny about this couple, who’ve been married and living in this house for 40 years, is how they communicate. They are constantly at each other in a humorous and, it seems at times, not so humorous fashion. “Shut Up Donnie!” is heard a good 10-12 times in any given sitting. Kitty is always telling Donnie to shut up, because he can’t tell the story correctly. Donnie is always telling her to hurry up, with the current story and any number of bird walks the story has taken, because she “talks to much” and can't finish a story. It is story after story; insert “Shut up Donnie” and “She never shuts up” ever so often from each of them, and you have a night at Kitty and Donnies. The main course is done, and Kitty offers coffee/tea and the cheese and biscuit platter; it also includes fruit and chocolate sweets as well. Of course, it doesn't matter that you've just eaten half your body weight in food, you eat more.
Kitty offers a few more insults at Donnie. They really do love each other, so we laugh, uncomfortably at their exchanges. They offer more food, drink. Then we smoke. They refuse to let you smoke your own cigarettes, because they’ve made their bi-annual trip to France via a ferry to pick up cheap smokes and bottles of booze and beer. That is one of their stories. They load up their car, drive south through England, drive onto the ferry, and being the regulars they are, the salesman fill the car up full, and then they ferry back. The car never leaves the boat. They simply shop for the duty free stuff, and make their way north back to Scotland. It’s a good system, and their guests benefit. Of course, we’ve heard this story a number of times. That is the other thing; we hear most of the stories several times. Part of the Kitty and Donnie charm. We smoke more, and now have a wee bottle of Stella Artois. Kitty calls a ‘light lady lager’. We know better. We retire into the sitting room and listen to more stories. They have no children and serve as host families to students. They are wonderful people with so much insight, humour and life to give to people and conversation. We tell them our thanks, and upon leaving, Donnie, of course, loads up a sack with 6 or 8 wee bottles of Stella, no matter of much we want to decline (as is not necessary to give us anything!), but, they won’t have any of it and we are taking it whether we want to or not. Ga'night! See yous la' er! and the door closes.